T H E H U F F I N G T O N P O S T
Discussion of the Katrina tragedy continued to dominate the Huffington Post this week. Here are four posts I did on the way the media, the administration, the Democrats and the American people have all responded to the crisis. For the latest headlines and blogs, keep logging on to huffingtonpost.com .
George Bush, David Caruso, and Katrina: Why Now Is Precisely the Time for Finger-Pointing
Posted September 6, 2005 at 8:59 p.m. EDT
Here's one for the Hypocrisy Hall of Fame: At the same time the administration is putting Karl Rove's "pin-the-blame-on-the-locals" plan into effect, President Bush told reporters gathered at a cabinet meeting today, "I think that one of the things that people want us to do here is play a blame game. We've got to solve problems. We're problem solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong. What I'm interested in is helping save lives."
How noble. A week and thousands of lives too late... but noble. He makes it sound as if anyone interested in trying to figure out what went so horribly wrong in the aftermath of Katrina is somehow impeding the recovery. As if we can't help the victims and analyze the debacle at the same time. As if any time spent by reporters ferreting out the truth -- and by Congress overseeing -- would otherwise be spent tossing sandbags on the levee, disinfecting the Superdome, or driving evacuees to Houston.
As if those seeking answers will have blood on their hands.
That's certainly the ominous rhetorical tack being taken by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. He's all about moving forward, and not looking back (which isn't surprising given how many corpses he'd see in his personal rear-view mirror). "What would be a horrible tragedy," he said, "would be to distract ourselves from avoiding further problems because we're spending time talking about problems that have already occurred." Gee, Mr. Secretary, I thought that was called 'learning from your mistakes.'
So the White House is for time management and against "finger-pointing" -- a two-talking-points-for-the-price-of-one Chertoff scored when he asked, "What do you want to have us spend our time on now? Do we want to make sure we are feeding, sheltering, housing, and educating those who are distressed, or do we want to begin the process of finger-pointing?" Well, when you put it that way...
Also receiving the time management/finger-pointing memo were White House spokesman Scott McClellan, WH communications director Dan Bartlett, and former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh:
"This is not a time for finger-pointing or playing politics," said Scotty.
"I know a lot of people right now want to point fingers and criticize, but people should keep their powder dry," said Allbaugh.
"If we focused more of our attention on decisions that have already been made, rather than those before us, there's potential for making far greater mistakes... We really don't have time to play the political game right now," echoed Bartlett.
With that kind of message discipline, how long before the media start parroting the party line? With a few brave exceptions like Jack Cafferty, the correct answer would be... right about now. "Not a great time for finger pointing is it?" asked Miles O'Brien on CNN's American Morning. "When you hear it's not the right time to point the finger, doesn't that seem reasonable?" asked anchor Carol Costello a few hours later on CNN's Daybreak .
Now, it's bad enough when the media start carrying the administration's water (especially when it's as fetid as the toxic muck still covering New Orleans), but it's much, much worse when the opposition's leaders grab a bucket and join in. "Our government failed those people in the beginning," said Bill Clinton. "And I personally believe there should be a serious analysis of it...but I don't think we should do it now. I think that in a few weeks, we should have some sort of Katrina commission. It should be bipartisan, non-partisan, whatever..." Exactly: "Whatever." As in: Who gives a crap, because it will have about the same impact as all these too-long-after-the-fact commissions have -- next to none. Who knows, maybe this time President Bush will be willing to actually testify under oath -- and without Dick Cheney. Or maybe Mike Brown will pull a Condi and let it slip about a "historical" PDB entitled "FEMA Determined to Strike Out in NO."
President Clinton's helpful assertion was quickly picked up by the President's father who used it as a cudgel against anyone trying to (if you'll pardon the expression) "point the finger" at his son: "People want to blame someone... I thought President Clinton put it pretty well today when he said, 'Let's get on with it and then there'll be plenty of time to assign blame.'"
Look, if we've learned anything from watching shows like CSI, Law & Order , and their endless progeny, it's that you can't let a crime scene grow cold. You've got to start collecting and analyzing the evidence while the DNA is still fresh and let David Caruso or Vincent D'Onofrio start sweating the perps while the passions are still running high.
And make no mistake, what we saw go down -- and not go down -- in New Orleans was definitely a crime... a crime that is in many ways still in progress. Sixty percent of the city remains underwater; up to 160,000 homes in the state of Louisiana have been submerged or destroyed; 60 to 90 million tons of solid waste need to be cleaned up; experts warn that it make take "years" to fully restore clean drinking water; and an outbreak of vibrio vulnificus -- a cholera-like bacterial disease -- has been reported among some Katrina evacuees.
This is clearly going to be a very long recovery process. And the sooner we've identified those responsible for the Katrina tragedy, the sooner we can make sure they're not around to screw up the recovery.
So, yes, now is precisely the time for assessing blame. Let a thousand pointed fingers bloom!
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Memo to the Media: Stop Enabling the White House Blame Game
Posted September 5, 2005 at 6:19 p.m. EDT
When it comes to managing political crises (as opposed to national ones), the Bush White House has earned a reputation as masters of damage control. And rightly so -- let's see you get reelected after Abu Ghraib, the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" memo, no WMD, no bin Laden (dead or alive), and "Mission (Most Definitely Not) Accomplished."
Well, according to the New York Times , Rove, Bartlett and the damage control boys are at it again, rolling out a plan to hang the post-Katrina debacle around the necks of Louisiana state and local officials... and, in the process, erase the image of a crassly incompetent administration too busy vacationing to worry about the dying in New Orleans.
Hence, Monday's Presidential Visit, Take Two. Can't you just see Rove yelling "Cut!", hopping out of his director's chair, pulling Bush aside, and whispering in his ear: "Okay, Mr. President, this isn't Armageddon meets The Wedding Crashers . So this time 86 the stories about how you used to party in New Orleans, and, for heaven's sake, do not focus on the suffering of Trent Lott. And no more hugging only freshly-showered black people who look like Halle Berry -- this time you gotta get a little closer to the living-in-their-own-feces crowd. Alright.... action!"
Look, as much as I despise the way they go about it, I get it: trying to save face by deflecting blame and sliming your enemies may be ugly but it's straight out of the Rove playbook and has proven highly effective.
What I don't understand is why the media continue to be star players on the Bush damage control team.
Take the way that both the Washington Post and Newsweek obediently, and ineptly, passed on -- and thus gave credence to -- the Bush party line that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's hesitancy to declare a state of emergency had prevented the feds from responding to the crisis more rapidly.
The Post , citing an anonymous "senior Bush official," reported on Sunday that, as of Saturday, Sept. 3, Blanco "still had not declared a state of emergency"... when, in fact, the declaration had been made on Friday, August 26 -- over 2 days BEFORE Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. This claim was so demonstrably false that the paper was forced to issue a correction just hours after the original story appeared.
So here are a couple of questions: 1) Had everyone in the WaPo fact-checking department gone out of town for the Labor Day weekend? I mean, c'mon, the announcement of a state of emergency isn't exactly the kind of thing government officials tend to keep a secret. 2) Why were the Post reporters so willing to blindly accept the words of an administration official who obviously had a partisan agenda -- and to grant this official anonymity?
Weren't they familiar with the Post 's policy on using anonymous sources, which states: "Sources often insist that we agree not to name them in the newspaper before they agree to talk with us. We must be reluctant to grant their wish. When we use an unnamed source, we are asking our readers to take an extra step to trust the credibility of the information we are providing. We must be certain in our own minds that the benefit to readers is worth the cost in credibility. ...Nevertheless, granting anonymity to a source should not be done casually or automatically." Here it was clearly done both casually and automatically.
The Post 's policy continues: "We prefer at least two sources for factual information in Post stories that depends on confidential informants, and those sources should be independent of each other." Oops. They could have saved themselves a lot of grief if the second source they never got for this story had been a staffer for Gov. Blanco... or, if the price of a phone call was too much, the state of Louisiana website where the truth about the state of emergency declaration was a click away.
Especially since the Post instructs its reporters: "When sources have axes to grind, we should let our readers know what their interest is" and "We do not promise sources that we will refrain from additional reporting or efforts to verify the information they may give us." You mean like checking to see if the line of bull they are feeding you is, y'know, a line of bull?
If anything, Newsweek's effort to assist the Bush damage control effort was even more egregious. While claiming that "Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Barbineaux Blanco seemed uncertain and sluggish, hesitant to declare martial law or a state of emergency, which would have opened the door to more Pentagon help" the magazine didn't even bother to cite a "senior Bush official," choosing instead to report Blanco's alleged failings as fact. Wonder where they got that "fact"? You think it might have been from the same "senior Bush official" that snookered the Post ?
The unquestioning regurgitation of administration spin through the use of anonymous sources is the fault line of modern American journalism. You'd think that after all we've seen -- from the horrific reporting on WMD to Judy Miller and Plamegate (to say nothing of all the endless navel-gazing media panel discussions analyzing the issue) -- these guys would finally get a clue and stop making the Journalism 101 mistake of granting anonymity to administration sources using them to smear their opponents.
The Washington Post corrected its article. Now it should take the next step and reveal who the source of that provably false chunk of slime was. And Newsweek should do the same.
It's time for the media to get back to doing their job and stop being the principal weapon in Team Bush's damage control arsenal.
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Will the Dems Ever Learn? "It's The National Security, Stupid"
Posted September 7, 2005 at 10:05 p.m. EDT
After an interminable week of silence on the administration's shockingly inept handling of the Katrina tragedy, Democratic leaders finally spoke out, with Harry Reid questioning whether the president's vacation hindered relief efforts and Nancy Pelosi labeling him "oblivious, in denial, dangerous."
But missing was a direct critique of Bush's greatest vulnerability -- the tens of thousands of men and women and the hundreds of billions of dollars that he is squandering in Iraq instead of using them to really protect the homeland, including from Katrina and its aftermath.
In a stinging Wall Street Journal analysis of the administration's lethally slow response, the first two reasons given for "why the U.S. didn't adequately protect and rescue its citizens" were 1) "the absorption of FEMA into the gargantuan -- and terrorism-focused -- Department of Homeland Security" and 2) "a military stretched by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which made commanders reluctant to commit active-duty units nearby."
That's the major, big picture point Reid and Pelosi should be making, instead of picking nits over whether Bush would have made better decisions in D.C. instead of Crawford. Pelosi called him "dangerous," but didn't tell us why he's really dangerous. He's dangerous not just because he's in denial about the job Brownie is doing but because his policies are making this country less secure with each passing day.
Did the Dems learn nothing from 2004? Bush won because he had a double-digit lead on the question of who was going to keep us safer.
Well, Katrina shoots that idea straight to hell, doesn't it? And Democrats should make clear once and for all just how illusory the president's purported strength, leadership, and steely-eyed resolve really are.
The debacle in New Orleans contains all the elements necessary to show how Bush's misguided priorities -- especially his obsession with Iraq -- have left us far more vulnerable, unsafe, and insecure. It's the perfect opportunity to redefine national security in a way that would ironically -- by putting America first -- most appeal to the red states.
So how come the Democrats are not making the "We will protect you better" case?
When will they finally understand that they will not be a majority party again until they clearly define for the country where they stand on national security -- and why their way will keep us safer than what the other guys are doing?
You don't rise from the political ashes by standing around hoping the other guy blows it. You do it by offering the American public a big, bold vision of a country that protects its own first -- which includes both securing our ports and railways from terrorists, and protecting the least among us from natural disasters (and not leaving them dying on rooftops or cowering in their bodily waste at hellish way stations like the Superdome).
Instead, true to losing form, the same brilliant minds that convinced John Kerry to focus on health care instead of Iraq and Abu Ghraib and no WMD in the last election, have decided that the Democrats should respond to Katrina by mounting an all-hands-on-deck assault on... (wait for it)... the GOP's plans to repeal the estate tax. Everyone from Bill and Hillary Clinton to Howard Dean have been reading from the same talking points, while Kerry sent out an umbrage-laden "Don't You Dare" petition about tax cuts.
Now, it goes without saying that giving mega-millionaires a tax break should be the last thing on Congress' mind right now -- and that Democrats should do everything they can to fight it. But pivoting from the massive suffering and devastation caused by Katrina (and what it reveals about the consequences of the war in Iraq and the GOP's warped definition of national security) to the estate tax is, once again, missing the point.
Derailing the privatization of Social Security didn't change the Democrats' fundamental problem -- their perceived weakness Posted on national security. Neither will keeping the estate tax in place.
The American people are mad, disgusted, and frightened. They want to know, who will keep us safe?
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Katrina Relief: Building on the Instinct for Giving
Posted September 9, 2005 at 8:20 p.m. EDT
The private charitable response to Katrina has been extraordinary. Americans have already donated over $500 million -- more than double the $239 million donated in the 10 days after 9/11 and more than triple the $164 million contributed in the immediate aftermath of December's tsunami.
And the money is just the tip of the giving. All across the country, ordinary people are donating food, water, clothing, diapers, baby formula, toiletries, flashlights, toys, dog food -- you name it -- as well as offers of housing, transportation, and entertainment.
"People all over," said Amanda Janes, a San Francisco coffee shop owner who organized a local Labor Day collection of goods, "are looking for a way to do a little bit more than giving money, because writing a check doesn't feel human enough."
This wellspring of altruism is one of the great untapped resources of our country -- squandered by a president who talks a lot about the fulfillment that comes from serving "something greater than ourselves" but has repeatedly blown the opportunity to call on the American people to commit themselves to a large, collective purpose.
After 9/11 he called on us all to go to Disney World. What will he ask of us in the wake of Katrina -- to stock up on "Girls Gone Wild -- Mardi Gras" DVDs?
But whatever the president does or doesn't do, let's hope the rest of us build on this outpouring of generosity.
I say this both selflessly and selfishly. Selflessly because it is so desperately needed: as surely as Katrina has left thousands in Mississippi and Louisiana in urgent need of assistance, it has also shone a spotlight on the gaping chasm between the Two Americas and the crushing poverty that exists largely out of view throughout America. Selfishly because the under-reported benefit of service is what it does for those who are doing the giving -- especially our children.
That's why I've always loved the idea of families volunteering together -- not as some feel-good act of noblesse oblige, but as an effective answer to the pervasive narcissism of our consumption-crazy culture.
America today is plagued with disconnections -- rich from poor, black from white, red state from blue, and parents from children. One of the greatest ways to bridge these divides is teaching children from an early age the importance of making service an integral part of their lives. It helps them see beyond the importance of being popular to the importance of being useful. Children brought up to feel that their lives have a larger purpose beyond themselves are more likely to keep their own troubles in perspective.
Ten years ago, I wrote a book I called The Fourth Instinct where I argued that we are all born with an instinct for altruism and giving as surely as we are born with instincts for survival, sex, and power. But like muscles that need to be exercised, our kids' generosity and compassion can only be developed through regular use.
Danielle Crittenden and Rebecca Pigeon are two mothers who wrote on HuffPost this week about the impact doing something for the victims of Katrina had on their children. And I've watched my own daughters absorb lessons through putting giving into practice they could easily have rejected if I just preached them.
I imagine that parents all across the country whose children have taken part in raising money with lemonade and cookie stands or by donating their toys to Katrina's victims know exactly what I'm talking about. So we shouldn't let this moment pass. When families gather around to decide what they're going to do over the weekend -- go to the mall? see a movie? hit the beach? -- donating their time and talents should be among the regular options.
Through volunteering, we can not only help those in need but also help raise more fully rounded human beings.
As Rev. Henry Delaney, who had been transforming boarded-up crack houses in Savannah, Ga. once told me: "I want to get people involved in what we're doing. It's like putting a poker in the fire. After a while, the fire gets in the poker too." It certainly does.
Of course, in no way does this let our government and our political leaders off the hook. Private charity can play a vital role in helping mend broken lives, especially those shattered by a sudden crisis like Katrina. But the task of caring for the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the storm (to say nothing of the even bigger challenge of overcoming poverty in America), is far too vast to be achieved without massive governmental resources. Sure, ordinary Americans have donated half-a-billion dollars -- but the relief effort has already burned through the $10.5 billion Congress approved just last week, and estimates put the overall rescue and rebuilding price tag somewhere in the range of $150 billion to $200 billion.
At the same time, government dollars will never be enough to turn lives around without citizen engagement. We desperately need both.
And a president willing to ask us to do more than go shopping.
© 2005 TheHuffingtonPost.com, LLC
George Bush, David Caruso, and Katrina: Why Now Is Precisely the Time for Finger-Pointing
Posted September 6, 2005 at 8:59 p.m. EDT
Here's one for the Hypocrisy Hall of Fame: At the same time the administration is putting Karl Rove's "pin-the-blame-on-the-locals" plan into effect, President Bush told reporters gathered at a cabinet meeting today, "I think that one of the things that people want us to do here is play a blame game. We've got to solve problems. We're problem solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong. What I'm interested in is helping save lives."
How noble. A week and thousands of lives too late... but noble. He makes it sound as if anyone interested in trying to figure out what went so horribly wrong in the aftermath of Katrina is somehow impeding the recovery. As if we can't help the victims and analyze the debacle at the same time. As if any time spent by reporters ferreting out the truth -- and by Congress overseeing -- would otherwise be spent tossing sandbags on the levee, disinfecting the Superdome, or driving evacuees to Houston.
As if those seeking answers will have blood on their hands.
That's certainly the ominous rhetorical tack being taken by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. He's all about moving forward, and not looking back (which isn't surprising given how many corpses he'd see in his personal rear-view mirror). "What would be a horrible tragedy," he said, "would be to distract ourselves from avoiding further problems because we're spending time talking about problems that have already occurred." Gee, Mr. Secretary, I thought that was called 'learning from your mistakes.'
So the White House is for time management and against "finger-pointing" -- a two-talking-points-for-the-price-of-one Chertoff scored when he asked, "What do you want to have us spend our time on now? Do we want to make sure we are feeding, sheltering, housing, and educating those who are distressed, or do we want to begin the process of finger-pointing?" Well, when you put it that way...
Also receiving the time management/finger-pointing memo were White House spokesman Scott McClellan, WH communications director Dan Bartlett, and former FEMA director Joe Allbaugh:
"This is not a time for finger-pointing or playing politics," said Scotty.
"I know a lot of people right now want to point fingers and criticize, but people should keep their powder dry," said Allbaugh.
"If we focused more of our attention on decisions that have already been made, rather than those before us, there's potential for making far greater mistakes... We really don't have time to play the political game right now," echoed Bartlett.
With that kind of message discipline, how long before the media start parroting the party line? With a few brave exceptions like Jack Cafferty, the correct answer would be... right about now. "Not a great time for finger pointing is it?" asked Miles O'Brien on CNN's American Morning. "When you hear it's not the right time to point the finger, doesn't that seem reasonable?" asked anchor Carol Costello a few hours later on CNN's Daybreak .
Now, it's bad enough when the media start carrying the administration's water (especially when it's as fetid as the toxic muck still covering New Orleans), but it's much, much worse when the opposition's leaders grab a bucket and join in. "Our government failed those people in the beginning," said Bill Clinton. "And I personally believe there should be a serious analysis of it...but I don't think we should do it now. I think that in a few weeks, we should have some sort of Katrina commission. It should be bipartisan, non-partisan, whatever..." Exactly: "Whatever." As in: Who gives a crap, because it will have about the same impact as all these too-long-after-the-fact commissions have -- next to none. Who knows, maybe this time President Bush will be willing to actually testify under oath -- and without Dick Cheney. Or maybe Mike Brown will pull a Condi and let it slip about a "historical" PDB entitled "FEMA Determined to Strike Out in NO."
President Clinton's helpful assertion was quickly picked up by the President's father who used it as a cudgel against anyone trying to (if you'll pardon the expression) "point the finger" at his son: "People want to blame someone... I thought President Clinton put it pretty well today when he said, 'Let's get on with it and then there'll be plenty of time to assign blame.'"
Look, if we've learned anything from watching shows like CSI, Law & Order , and their endless progeny, it's that you can't let a crime scene grow cold. You've got to start collecting and analyzing the evidence while the DNA is still fresh and let David Caruso or Vincent D'Onofrio start sweating the perps while the passions are still running high.
And make no mistake, what we saw go down -- and not go down -- in New Orleans was definitely a crime... a crime that is in many ways still in progress. Sixty percent of the city remains underwater; up to 160,000 homes in the state of Louisiana have been submerged or destroyed; 60 to 90 million tons of solid waste need to be cleaned up; experts warn that it make take "years" to fully restore clean drinking water; and an outbreak of vibrio vulnificus -- a cholera-like bacterial disease -- has been reported among some Katrina evacuees.
This is clearly going to be a very long recovery process. And the sooner we've identified those responsible for the Katrina tragedy, the sooner we can make sure they're not around to screw up the recovery.
So, yes, now is precisely the time for assessing blame. Let a thousand pointed fingers bloom!
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Memo to the Media: Stop Enabling the White House Blame Game
Posted September 5, 2005 at 6:19 p.m. EDT
When it comes to managing political crises (as opposed to national ones), the Bush White House has earned a reputation as masters of damage control. And rightly so -- let's see you get reelected after Abu Ghraib, the "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" memo, no WMD, no bin Laden (dead or alive), and "Mission (Most Definitely Not) Accomplished."
Well, according to the New York Times , Rove, Bartlett and the damage control boys are at it again, rolling out a plan to hang the post-Katrina debacle around the necks of Louisiana state and local officials... and, in the process, erase the image of a crassly incompetent administration too busy vacationing to worry about the dying in New Orleans.
Hence, Monday's Presidential Visit, Take Two. Can't you just see Rove yelling "Cut!", hopping out of his director's chair, pulling Bush aside, and whispering in his ear: "Okay, Mr. President, this isn't Armageddon meets The Wedding Crashers . So this time 86 the stories about how you used to party in New Orleans, and, for heaven's sake, do not focus on the suffering of Trent Lott. And no more hugging only freshly-showered black people who look like Halle Berry -- this time you gotta get a little closer to the living-in-their-own-feces crowd. Alright.... action!"
Look, as much as I despise the way they go about it, I get it: trying to save face by deflecting blame and sliming your enemies may be ugly but it's straight out of the Rove playbook and has proven highly effective.
What I don't understand is why the media continue to be star players on the Bush damage control team.
Take the way that both the Washington Post and Newsweek obediently, and ineptly, passed on -- and thus gave credence to -- the Bush party line that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's hesitancy to declare a state of emergency had prevented the feds from responding to the crisis more rapidly.
The Post , citing an anonymous "senior Bush official," reported on Sunday that, as of Saturday, Sept. 3, Blanco "still had not declared a state of emergency"... when, in fact, the declaration had been made on Friday, August 26 -- over 2 days BEFORE Katrina made landfall in Louisiana. This claim was so demonstrably false that the paper was forced to issue a correction just hours after the original story appeared.
So here are a couple of questions: 1) Had everyone in the WaPo fact-checking department gone out of town for the Labor Day weekend? I mean, c'mon, the announcement of a state of emergency isn't exactly the kind of thing government officials tend to keep a secret. 2) Why were the Post reporters so willing to blindly accept the words of an administration official who obviously had a partisan agenda -- and to grant this official anonymity?
Weren't they familiar with the Post 's policy on using anonymous sources, which states: "Sources often insist that we agree not to name them in the newspaper before they agree to talk with us. We must be reluctant to grant their wish. When we use an unnamed source, we are asking our readers to take an extra step to trust the credibility of the information we are providing. We must be certain in our own minds that the benefit to readers is worth the cost in credibility. ...Nevertheless, granting anonymity to a source should not be done casually or automatically." Here it was clearly done both casually and automatically.
The Post 's policy continues: "We prefer at least two sources for factual information in Post stories that depends on confidential informants, and those sources should be independent of each other." Oops. They could have saved themselves a lot of grief if the second source they never got for this story had been a staffer for Gov. Blanco... or, if the price of a phone call was too much, the state of Louisiana website where the truth about the state of emergency declaration was a click away.
Especially since the Post instructs its reporters: "When sources have axes to grind, we should let our readers know what their interest is" and "We do not promise sources that we will refrain from additional reporting or efforts to verify the information they may give us." You mean like checking to see if the line of bull they are feeding you is, y'know, a line of bull?
If anything, Newsweek's effort to assist the Bush damage control effort was even more egregious. While claiming that "Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Barbineaux Blanco seemed uncertain and sluggish, hesitant to declare martial law or a state of emergency, which would have opened the door to more Pentagon help" the magazine didn't even bother to cite a "senior Bush official," choosing instead to report Blanco's alleged failings as fact. Wonder where they got that "fact"? You think it might have been from the same "senior Bush official" that snookered the Post ?
The unquestioning regurgitation of administration spin through the use of anonymous sources is the fault line of modern American journalism. You'd think that after all we've seen -- from the horrific reporting on WMD to Judy Miller and Plamegate (to say nothing of all the endless navel-gazing media panel discussions analyzing the issue) -- these guys would finally get a clue and stop making the Journalism 101 mistake of granting anonymity to administration sources using them to smear their opponents.
The Washington Post corrected its article. Now it should take the next step and reveal who the source of that provably false chunk of slime was. And Newsweek should do the same.
It's time for the media to get back to doing their job and stop being the principal weapon in Team Bush's damage control arsenal.
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Will the Dems Ever Learn? "It's The National Security, Stupid"
Posted September 7, 2005 at 10:05 p.m. EDT
After an interminable week of silence on the administration's shockingly inept handling of the Katrina tragedy, Democratic leaders finally spoke out, with Harry Reid questioning whether the president's vacation hindered relief efforts and Nancy Pelosi labeling him "oblivious, in denial, dangerous."
But missing was a direct critique of Bush's greatest vulnerability -- the tens of thousands of men and women and the hundreds of billions of dollars that he is squandering in Iraq instead of using them to really protect the homeland, including from Katrina and its aftermath.
In a stinging Wall Street Journal analysis of the administration's lethally slow response, the first two reasons given for "why the U.S. didn't adequately protect and rescue its citizens" were 1) "the absorption of FEMA into the gargantuan -- and terrorism-focused -- Department of Homeland Security" and 2) "a military stretched by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which made commanders reluctant to commit active-duty units nearby."
That's the major, big picture point Reid and Pelosi should be making, instead of picking nits over whether Bush would have made better decisions in D.C. instead of Crawford. Pelosi called him "dangerous," but didn't tell us why he's really dangerous. He's dangerous not just because he's in denial about the job Brownie is doing but because his policies are making this country less secure with each passing day.
Did the Dems learn nothing from 2004? Bush won because he had a double-digit lead on the question of who was going to keep us safer.
Well, Katrina shoots that idea straight to hell, doesn't it? And Democrats should make clear once and for all just how illusory the president's purported strength, leadership, and steely-eyed resolve really are.
The debacle in New Orleans contains all the elements necessary to show how Bush's misguided priorities -- especially his obsession with Iraq -- have left us far more vulnerable, unsafe, and insecure. It's the perfect opportunity to redefine national security in a way that would ironically -- by putting America first -- most appeal to the red states.
So how come the Democrats are not making the "We will protect you better" case?
When will they finally understand that they will not be a majority party again until they clearly define for the country where they stand on national security -- and why their way will keep us safer than what the other guys are doing?
You don't rise from the political ashes by standing around hoping the other guy blows it. You do it by offering the American public a big, bold vision of a country that protects its own first -- which includes both securing our ports and railways from terrorists, and protecting the least among us from natural disasters (and not leaving them dying on rooftops or cowering in their bodily waste at hellish way stations like the Superdome).
Instead, true to losing form, the same brilliant minds that convinced John Kerry to focus on health care instead of Iraq and Abu Ghraib and no WMD in the last election, have decided that the Democrats should respond to Katrina by mounting an all-hands-on-deck assault on... (wait for it)... the GOP's plans to repeal the estate tax. Everyone from Bill and Hillary Clinton to Howard Dean have been reading from the same talking points, while Kerry sent out an umbrage-laden "Don't You Dare" petition about tax cuts.
Now, it goes without saying that giving mega-millionaires a tax break should be the last thing on Congress' mind right now -- and that Democrats should do everything they can to fight it. But pivoting from the massive suffering and devastation caused by Katrina (and what it reveals about the consequences of the war in Iraq and the GOP's warped definition of national security) to the estate tax is, once again, missing the point.
Derailing the privatization of Social Security didn't change the Democrats' fundamental problem -- their perceived weakness Posted on national security. Neither will keeping the estate tax in place.
The American people are mad, disgusted, and frightened. They want to know, who will keep us safe?
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Katrina Relief: Building on the Instinct for Giving
Posted September 9, 2005 at 8:20 p.m. EDT
The private charitable response to Katrina has been extraordinary. Americans have already donated over $500 million -- more than double the $239 million donated in the 10 days after 9/11 and more than triple the $164 million contributed in the immediate aftermath of December's tsunami.
And the money is just the tip of the giving. All across the country, ordinary people are donating food, water, clothing, diapers, baby formula, toiletries, flashlights, toys, dog food -- you name it -- as well as offers of housing, transportation, and entertainment.
"People all over," said Amanda Janes, a San Francisco coffee shop owner who organized a local Labor Day collection of goods, "are looking for a way to do a little bit more than giving money, because writing a check doesn't feel human enough."
This wellspring of altruism is one of the great untapped resources of our country -- squandered by a president who talks a lot about the fulfillment that comes from serving "something greater than ourselves" but has repeatedly blown the opportunity to call on the American people to commit themselves to a large, collective purpose.
After 9/11 he called on us all to go to Disney World. What will he ask of us in the wake of Katrina -- to stock up on "Girls Gone Wild -- Mardi Gras" DVDs?
But whatever the president does or doesn't do, let's hope the rest of us build on this outpouring of generosity.
I say this both selflessly and selfishly. Selflessly because it is so desperately needed: as surely as Katrina has left thousands in Mississippi and Louisiana in urgent need of assistance, it has also shone a spotlight on the gaping chasm between the Two Americas and the crushing poverty that exists largely out of view throughout America. Selfishly because the under-reported benefit of service is what it does for those who are doing the giving -- especially our children.
That's why I've always loved the idea of families volunteering together -- not as some feel-good act of noblesse oblige, but as an effective answer to the pervasive narcissism of our consumption-crazy culture.
America today is plagued with disconnections -- rich from poor, black from white, red state from blue, and parents from children. One of the greatest ways to bridge these divides is teaching children from an early age the importance of making service an integral part of their lives. It helps them see beyond the importance of being popular to the importance of being useful. Children brought up to feel that their lives have a larger purpose beyond themselves are more likely to keep their own troubles in perspective.
Ten years ago, I wrote a book I called The Fourth Instinct where I argued that we are all born with an instinct for altruism and giving as surely as we are born with instincts for survival, sex, and power. But like muscles that need to be exercised, our kids' generosity and compassion can only be developed through regular use.
Danielle Crittenden and Rebecca Pigeon are two mothers who wrote on HuffPost this week about the impact doing something for the victims of Katrina had on their children. And I've watched my own daughters absorb lessons through putting giving into practice they could easily have rejected if I just preached them.
I imagine that parents all across the country whose children have taken part in raising money with lemonade and cookie stands or by donating their toys to Katrina's victims know exactly what I'm talking about. So we shouldn't let this moment pass. When families gather around to decide what they're going to do over the weekend -- go to the mall? see a movie? hit the beach? -- donating their time and talents should be among the regular options.
Through volunteering, we can not only help those in need but also help raise more fully rounded human beings.
As Rev. Henry Delaney, who had been transforming boarded-up crack houses in Savannah, Ga. once told me: "I want to get people involved in what we're doing. It's like putting a poker in the fire. After a while, the fire gets in the poker too." It certainly does.
Of course, in no way does this let our government and our political leaders off the hook. Private charity can play a vital role in helping mend broken lives, especially those shattered by a sudden crisis like Katrina. But the task of caring for the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the storm (to say nothing of the even bigger challenge of overcoming poverty in America), is far too vast to be achieved without massive governmental resources. Sure, ordinary Americans have donated half-a-billion dollars -- but the relief effort has already burned through the $10.5 billion Congress approved just last week, and estimates put the overall rescue and rebuilding price tag somewhere in the range of $150 billion to $200 billion.
At the same time, government dollars will never be enough to turn lives around without citizen engagement. We desperately need both.
And a president willing to ask us to do more than go shopping.
© 2005 TheHuffingtonPost.com, LLC
posted by T. Scott Brineman | 10:17 AM
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